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Mixed race isn’t black and white: Paradkar

In the opening scenes of the satirical Netflix show Dear White People, the mixed-race Samantha White, a junior media studies major at a fictional Ivy League University, is told by various people, “You look like Beyoncé.” “Storm from the X-Men.” “Wait. What are you?”

Annoyed, she takes to the mic on her radio show. “Dear white people,” she begins. “Here’s a little tip. When you ask someone who looks ethnically different “What are you?” the answer is usually “a person about to slap the s--- out of you.”

Children of mixed-race couples can be described by such positive stereotypes as "exotic" that often apply to those who look closer to white or have elitism on their side. Think Keanu Reeves, think Drake. (Getty Images file photos)

It’s not the only stock reaction that greets mixed-race people, nor do the comments all come from white people, although just like “bilingual” is assumed to mean English and French, mixed race is assumed, by default, to mean a product of white and another race.

“People think mixed-race people are smarter, they are genetically better off,” said author Sharon H. Chang, speaking on the sidelines of a Mixed Art Conference in Toronto last weekend, where she was the keynote speaker. “When you get into biological superiority, that gets into very dangerous territory.”

Mixed-race couples account for only 4.6 per cent of all unions in Canada, according to a Statistics Canada report last updated in 2013.

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The offspring of such a couple are often described as being “exotic” or “post-racial.” These positive stereotypes often apply to those who look closer to white or have elitism on their side. Think Keanu Reeves, think Drake.

As the children born of mixed heritages get further from whiteness, problems of racism or colourism crop up, even from within families. White parents who deny their own privilege can also be blind to the racializing experiences of their children, Chang found after interviewing 68 families for her book Raising Mixed Race.

The idea that “by their birth they bridge the divide between races is a myth,” Chang says. “Birthing mixed kids does not fix racial issues.”

Zainab Amadahy, 62, knows this only too well. She is mixed race of African-American, Cherokee, Seminole, Portuguese and Amish descent. Her mother was white, her father Black and in the Jim Crow era that normalized segregation, her mother’s parents disowned her. Internalized racism meant it wasn’t smooth sailing on the racial front on her father’s side, either.

“My father’s people were very shade-ist,” she told the conference audience. “Upward mobility meant being lighter, marrying into light skin.”

Amadahy identified as Black and as an activist, was easily accepted as one. “In those days, to talk about being mixed race was to claim light-skin privilege,” she says.

One of her earliest memories involves waking up to New York City cops rousing her father out of bed one night in the ’60s and then punching and kicking him down the stairs. He came back beaten and bruised the next day. There were no charges against him. Turned out the police had mistaken him for someone else. No apologies either. “That was my introduction to the idea that cops were not safe.”

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School? As the only Black in school with her siblings, she remembers being assaulted, beaten up. “It was my white mother, of all people, who taught me how to defend myself, sent us all to karate school.

“She was a follower of MLK and didn’t believe in violence, but I guess that was theoretical when it came to her own kids being beaten up.”

In the days when “mixed” in America meant white mixed with black, her Indigenous roots stayed in the background. It was only when she came to Toronto as a 19-year-old that she got involved with the pan-Indigenous community and felt freer to explore that side of her heritage.

Indigeneity is anything but in the background for Dani Kwan-Lafond, who is Chinese, Indigenous and French-Canadian. She and her partner, who is Jewish, have a little girl.

Mixedness comes with challenges for a parent, not the least of which is, “Do I put her in native school in Toronto? Or do I put into a French school?”

“Certainly, she sees a lot of Asian faces, both Chinese and Filipino,” Kwan-Lafond said.

“But being Indigenous is something different. We have these mixed identities . . . and one of those identities is a really politicized one in Canada . . . we do a lot more in our house around Indigeneity than we do around Asianness.”

Kwan-Lafond wonders: “As a parent, how do I bring her up in a good way with a community of elders and listen to my teachings? How do I also acknowledge those other parts of identity?”

So, they end up celebrating a number of traditions. “We do Chinese New Year, Passover. We do Pow Wows.

“It’s a complicated situation, but it’s our normal.”

Intermingling may not have the inherent ability to solve racial inequalities, but with considered parenting, it can offer a genuine shot at moving past tribalism.

Amadahy considers her background a blessing. “It has allowed me to move in and out of communities, have passion for many, many stories and to question our socially constructed ideas of identity.”

Shree Paradkar tackles issues of race and gender. You can follow her @shreeparadkar.

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